Floola, the iTunes Alternative; DoubleTwist removes DRM

I was looking for an alternative to iTunes the other day as a friend was having issues with theirs. In doing so I came across a great little app called “Floola”

To quote from their website : “Floola is a freeware application to efficiently manage your iPod or your Motorola mobile phone (any model supporting iTunes). It’s a standalone application that can be run directly from your iPod and needs no installation under Linux, Mac OS X and Windows”

Sounds great eh? The bonus is that it’s lightweight and not resource hungry! You could pop it on a memory stick (the app weighs in at 17.6mb for the Win32 version I am using) and manage your tunes on any compatible computer.

How to run Floola on Windows when you have iTunes already installed

First, kill the iTunes applications running in the background – to do this, go to the Task Manager and end the AppleMobileDeviceService and iPodService tasks (click the image for details)

Plug in your iPod and then run the floola application

It will prompt you to select your version of iPod if this is the first time you’ve run this combination of iPod and install

It may also say that your iPod is not setup correctly and offer to do this automatically – I said “yes” to this

Result! You now have your Floola application configured.

You can still manage your music, podcasts, etc. The interface is compact so it might seem quirky at first, but I think this is a great solution / alternative to iTunes. You can download Floola from here.

How to remove DRM through DoubleTwist

I’ve also found a great application that removes the DRM from any of your iTunes files – again freeware and spyware free – called DoubleTwist. According to their FAQ “Our mission is to enable consumers to enjoy their digital media on the widest possible range of devices and help them share what they’ve created with friends.”

Also from their site : “doubleTwist can automatically convert music you have purchased from the iTunes store to MP3, a universal format supported by all devices that play digital music. doubleTwist does not delete or move the original files. You can only convert files that you have legally purchased and are authorized to play with iTunes.”

Aside from the whole argument for and against DRM, those of us who have bought legal songs and want them not just on our iPod, this seems like a great way to be able to listen to them on other devices.

MelodyCan is tool for converting any kind of audio and video data to commonly used formats such as MP3, AAC, WAV audio, MPEG4, DivX movie. It (has a) capability to convert any kind of protected and unprotected data to regular audio and video formats which can be played on dozens of compatible devices. The only condition is that the music content must be legally obtained and can be played on the computer where MelodyCan is installed.